


Luck goes both ways

by SherlockedInHeaven



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:05:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockedInHeaven/pseuds/SherlockedInHeaven
Summary: re-upload





	1. Chapter 1

okay so this is a reupload


	2. 1

The dreams came to me again, as they do every night. The tributes come back, the blood, the weapons, it's all there, and I can't control it. I see the knife through the boy's head, no older than fourteen, the explosion that knocked out at least four tributes, and then, as I stood in the middle of the arena, the blood started soaking to me, through the jungle woods, the blood of all the tributes that I had miraculously managed to kill… and then I wake up. As predicted I sat up in bed, the knife grasped in my hands as I attacked at the one thing I couldn't stop, my own mind. My house was dark; there were no people and no one attacking me. It took a moment to catch my breath, trying to block out any of the dream once again, shoving it behind locked doors in my brain. Because the more I think about my time in the arena, the worse it gets. Taking deep breaths I lay back down on my pillow, putting the knife back under it and feeling, once again, fluff. I had torn open yet another mattress in my not very peaceful sleep. My name was Sherlock Holmes, and I, out of some miserable magic, am a victor of the most dangerous game you could ever play, President Snow's idea of entertainment, the Hunger Games. Unfortunately though, I lived in District 12, the worst of all the districts, we only had two victors currently living, me and a girl named Molly Hooper. I didn't know how she won, I never watched the games, I only ever watched as they lower two more crude wooden coffins into the rocky soil. I didn't go in with much, I had a score of four in the evaluations, no one in their right mind would invest in me, and my mentor was Molly, so the only thing I knew how to do was smile at the camera and hide. But thankfully I had my brain, and no one could take that away from me, even though at the moment I wish they could. I rigged traps, I tricked tributes into practically killing themselves, and made shelters that were hidden in plain sight, letting the others slaughter each other while they aimlessly forgot about me. And when I killed him, the boy, I didn't know his name, the hovercraft came to pick me up, and that was what they called the end. Now I got a nice fancy house in the victor's village, my family got their own house in the victor's village, and we were supposed to pretend the whole thing never happened. But you never really leave the games. I knew I would be having these dreams the rest of my life, I knew that I would keep going through mattresses, attacking them so I actually have something to take my anger out on. The only thing I can do is slow them down, but I wouldn't resort to that yet, in the morning I will need all the help I could get. Tomorrow was the reaping, well, I looked at the clock, which read 1:34, today was the reaping. Now I have to be a mentor, and try to teach some brainless kid with no chance to survive, and throughout the whole thing I had to smile and act like I'm completely fine. The worst thing that can ever happen to you is the escort, Mrs. Hudson, pulling that white slip of paper out of that bowl, reading your name out to the on looking crowd. When that happened to me, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. No one knew me, even before my games I had no friends, the only four that were affected were me, my brother Mycroft, and my parents. The three of them were sharing another house right next to mine, which was both good and bad. They can't see me at my worst, they aren't present when I wake up screaming, and they don't see the drugs. But they also aren't here to comfort me, to tell me everything is okay, and if there was anything I wanted on that train was a friend, someone who could tell me it was alright, and that I'd come out fine. I lay awake for the rest of the night, and around five o'clock in the morning I heard the soft engines of the hovercrafts flying over my house, coming loaded with peacekeepers. They're called peacekeepers to try to make you feel safe, but I knew that the only way they actually kept peace was with guns and violence; they'd open fire on even the smallest of riots. I knew President Snow was paranoid, he didn't want to lose any sliver of his infinite power, and even the smallest, most pathetic districts of mere coal miners were treated like prisoners. The games were the same, they always will be and if something changes then people die. The victor will live, but everyone else involved, even the innocent family members, would be tortured or even killed, it was ruthless and evil. But then again, this entire place was evil, and they knew it. When I heard the engines I sat up, digging under my bed for the syringes, sticking it in my forearm and letting the drugs take over, blocking my mind and for a while taking my mind of the torture that would come. A couple of hours later there was a knock on the door, good timing too, I was now partially sober.  
"Come in!" I called. I was upstairs, but I heard the door open and two, no, three pairs of feet entered my house. Dang it, they brought Mycroft. I shoved any evidence of the drugs into what I call, in my mind, the drug shoe, just some stupid shoe that held everything I could get in trouble for, hidden under my bed.  
"Sherlock where are you!" My mother called, her loud, scratchy voice making me want to bury my head in my pillow.  
"I'm coming!" I yelled back, angrily getting out of my bed and pulling on a robe. When I opened the door the light burned my eyes, after being up for so long in the darkness I'd gotten used to it. My mother was at the base of the stairs, dressed all fancy and ready for the cameras again.  
"Come on Sherlock, you need to start getting ready!" she insisted. I rubbed my face with my hands, ruffling my hair in annoyance.  
"No! I'm not going!" I hissed.  
"You have to." My dad insisted, poking his head out of the kitchen. "Come on, I'm making breakfast."  
"I'm not hungry."  
"You have to eat sweetie!" Mom insisted.  
"Mycroft will eat my portion, he'll eat both of yours too if you don't watch out." I pointed out.  
"I heard that!" Mycroft yelled from the kitchen.  
"Good Now I'll be back in my room, please feel free to go back to your own home." I hissed, walking back into my room and closing the door. On this door I had attached a deadbolt, it was supposed to help me feel better about it, but it only made the room look more like a dungeon to me, it couldn't hold out the nightmares, but it would hold out the next worse thing, my family. I locked the bolt, flopping back onto my bed. I couldn't go to the reaping; I couldn't watch that same bloody video and hear the lies, and the names of the next victims. I would stay up here in my room, and the only way I was going to attend the 'ceremony' was if they broke down my door and sedated me. I heard my family talking down stairs, I knew they were worried about me, but there was nothing they could ever do to understand this terror I was going through. Every single day and night I went through the horror, they could never understand.  
"Sherlock, do you want to talk?" Molly's voice asked through the bedroom door when the clock read ten o'clock. They picked the names at exactly twelve.  
"Tell my parents to leave me alone! And then you can go with them too!" I called back to my previous mentor. I knew I hurt her feelings; it was quite obvious that she fancied me, but I would have nothing to do with her or anyone for that fact. I didn't have interest in anyone, and I knew that love would only be a pathetic attempt to distract myself from everything. Instead of putting my feelings to another human, I left them for a manufactured, illegal drug, but I was a lot more comfortable with that. No one understood me, no one ever would, and I would just be afraid to get them killed.  
"Sherlock you really need to come to the ceremony." Molly said again after a while. I though t she had left, so I groaned.  
"I don't have to do anything!" I hissed.  
"But you're last year's victor, the people will want to see you!" she insisted.  
"I doubt they'd want to see me like this." I pointed out.  
"Please Sherlock, I don't want you to get in trouble." She begged.  
"I'm sorry Molly, but I'm not coming!" I insisted. I heard her sigh with annoyance, but after a while I heard her retreating footsteps. I knew that she knew she has been where I am now, wanting to hide, somehow she made it through, but I didn't want to talk about it. That was her philosophy, if you have a problem talk it out, which was how the train was most of the way. She'd hold my hand and ask me what was wrong. But of course, being the mean person I was, I'd push her away and hide. That was my philosophy, if you've got a problem it will go away if you do. All in all that wasn't working, I'd hide and the problem would just grow, so I'd tame it with the drugs. They were always helpful, although no one else knew about them. Eventually it was eleven o'clock, when the entire town would move to the town square, in the roped off prisons. I heard my door open and all of the residence leave without me. I went to the window, peeking one eye through the thick curtains to watch them leave. They were all dressed very nicely, even Mycroft had worn a suit, but even that didn't hide the fat that was underneath. The sun burnt my eyes, so I pushed the curtain back, plunging the room to darkness. A little bit later I heard the microphone blaring, Mrs. Hudson was talking about something, introducing herself and lying about the pleasure it was to be in this hellhole of a district. The video must be playing, because I heard faint music, and then there was silence. I saw the digital clock, the red numbers displaying twelve o'clock. I heard her talking, and more silence. The women tribute had just been picked. There wasn't any applause, only silence as they watched their daughter or friend go to the chopping block, probably never to come back down. Then there was more talking, and the man was picked, more silence. And then it was over, I knew it was, because I remembered it well, I was stuck on that platform; I had to watch my whole town look at me with morn, as if I was already dead. I didn't even bother getting to know the girl that was on the train with me, she was at the table with me, she would wait with me until our district was called for everything, we rode on the carriage, but I never knew her name. I couldn't know her name, because the only way for me to win was if she was dead. I knew the district would go celebrate with relief that it wasn't their kids carted off to the visiting rooms. Now I knew I had to get ready, I had to be on that train, so I threw on black slacks and my favorite purple shirt. I packed a bag with more clothes, books, and the drug shoe, the train had everything else that I would've needed. I made sure that I didn't look destroyed; I didn't want the poor tribute to have to see what we become after the victor's tour. We become the living dead, leading a cursed life. I walked down to the station, where I saw my family waiting for me. Other than the three of them and Molly, there were no other people there except the beggars, who flocked at the trains to maybe get a cent or too from people. I didn't smile at the group, even though my mother did her best to look proud of me. I knew it hurt her to see me like this, I knew that she never wanted this fate for me, but no one can rewrite time. I gave them all, (except Mycroft) meaningless hugs of farewell, I'd see them when this was all over for another year. Molly didn't have family, I don't know what happened to them, and I never really wanted to find out, but the two of us just got on the train together. Molly said goodbye to my family as well, they were pretty much the only family she had, and they treated her like a daughter. My mother always wanted us to get together, she claimed that shared life experience was a great relationship tool, but I just scowled whenever she brought it up. As I stepped back on the train there was a rush of memories, miserable memories, of sitting in those chairs and wondering what would become of me. There were platters of the fanciest food you could imagine, from deserts to meats, but none of the first time tributes ever ate it. If Mycroft had been picked instead of me then there would be a problem. He wouldn't be able to step off the platform, he'd just roll. Maybe the reason I hated him so much is because he didn't volunteer. You can do that, volunteer to take some else's place, he was the oldest age allowed, but he just looked at me with sadness, as if knowing I was off to die but not doing anything to stop it. As much as he tries to defend himself I knew the truth, he was terrified of being a tribute, he had no fighting skills, he would've had less of a chance then me, and that was really saying something even though I managed to get out of there.  
"I guess we get to meet the tributes now." Molly muttered after we put our stuff in out designated rooms. I nodded, I had no idea who these tributes were, but there was one rule that I gave myself, I couldn't get attached to them. I knew that I'd only see them one other time afterwards, their stone faces in the wooden coffins. District Twelve, after all of these years, had only managed to send through two victors, that was quite sad if you ask me. These poor kids had no chance. I would've been in the reaping again this year, it would be my last year that I could, but I would've been standing there with all of the other boys, praying that my name didn't get called. I saw the media outside of the window, some putting their cameras almost on the windows to film us, and others following a crowd of people, the tributes, obviously moving towards the train. I simply flipped off the camera crews, to Molly's terror, she just slapped my arm down and smiled and waved. The doors in the other compartment opened, I could hear crying and screaming from the families trying to get past the peacekeepers, to get to their already dead children.  
"Be nice Sherlock, remember what it was like for you." Molly insisted.  
"I'm not a nice person." I said simply.  
"You can be, if you want to be. Now, I'll be mentoring the girl, her name is Irene Adler, she seems… nice. And you'll be mentoring the boy, his name," she was cut off by the door opening. Two people walked out, a girl that was obviously eighteen, she had long black hair and very pale skin, and a boy that might be sixteen or seventeen, with sandy blonde hair and a look of terror in his face. I simply looked at them as Molly smiled and said her greetings, introducing me and herself.  
"And what's your names?" she asked.  
"You already know our names, they were announced." Irene pointed out, walking straight past us to the snack table. That was something I thought I'd never see, and immediately I didn't like her.  
"I'm, John Watson." The boy said in a sort of squeak. The poor kid was scared out of his mind. I knew what that felt like, but I didn't do anything to comfort him. He should be scared, if you weren't you were lying to yourself, like Irene. She just ate the chocolate off of the chocolate covered strawberries, dumping the leftover fruit in the trash. I cringed, knowing that half the town would kill each other over those leftovers, they were starving animals, and she simply threw it in the trash.  
"So, where are we going?" she asked, chocolate staining her teeth.  
"We're going to the Capital." Molly said simply.  
"I meant where in the Capital." She pointed out, as if that was obvious. I was starting to think I wouldn't miss her.  
"The Tribute Center, where you'll be sleeping and training." Molly answered. I could already tell her patience was wearing thin, which was a real accomplishment because she could handle me and my little tantrums, but this girl was a whole other level of fist clenching. So I decided to ignore her, and, since I was feeling in a pretty miserable mood, I made an executive decision to ignore this John Watson fellow too. I gave the group of people one last pathetic smile before letting the automatic doors open for me, and I retreaded to where my stationed room was.


End file.
